'Well, Madame, I know it is very silly; but I had kept that foolish little pin so long and so carefully, that I had grown quite fond of it; but I suppose it is lost, and I must content myself, though I cannot laugh as you do. So I will get up now, and dress.'
'I think you will do well to get all the repose you can,' answered Madame; 'but as you please,' she added, observing that I was getting up.
So soon as I had got some of my things on, I said—
'Is there a pretty view from the window?'
'No,' said Madame.
I looked out and saw a dreary quadrangle of cut stone, in one side of which my window was placed. As I looked a dream rose up before me.
'This hotel,' I said, in a puzzled way. 'Is it a hotel? Why this is just like—it is the inner court of Bartram-Haugh!'
Madame clapped her large hands together, made a fantastic chassé on the floor, burst into a great nasal laugh like the scream of a parrot, and then said—
'Well, dearest Maud, is not clever trick?'
I was so utterly confounded that I could only stare about me in stupid silence, a spectacle which renewed Madame's peals of laughter.